


Gone Native

by SkysongMA



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Newt is secretly a kaiju, but this story is more about cuddles than that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 18:10:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11697099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkysongMA/pseuds/SkysongMA
Summary: Herman ran like neither of his legs ever locked up and fell to his knees like he was a teenager before the symptoms kicked in, when the biggest worry on his mind was sneaking around with his boyfriend and making sure they didn't get kicked out of boarding school.He slammed his hand down on the abort button, then grabbed Newt to make sure he was still breathing. He stopped seizing immediately, and his pulse was steady and strong under Hermann's searching fingers, and Hermann knew that meant he needed to go and get the Marshal right now but he could not make himself move because Newt was clutching at him and sobbing and Hermann thought it was from the pain and shock but that wasn't the case at all.Now the memory is doubled, and he knows what Newt really felt in that moment. Secondary, the pressure of Hermann's arms around him, grounding him, something he'd never in a million fucking years ask for but has needed so goddamn long. But primary is relief, because for a few blessed seconds his mind was no longer silent. For a few blessed seconds, Newt was home, even if home immediately turned on him and tried to short out a brain unused to such stimulation.





	Gone Native

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea as some big dramatic thing for years now, but I decided to write this instead because it's more fun.

Hermann saw a lot in the Drift that he was not expecting. Some things made sense; some things did not. But he had always been very good at sorting through dross to find the gold, and at the end of the day, there were only two relevant pieces of information.

 

The first he said immediately after throwing up into the abandoned toilet. _It's not going to work._

 

The second he didn't speak about, and he didn't have to, because he knew Newt could see it in his mind. They'd seen each other's lives in a heartbeat, and there was much Hermann would have to sort through—so much it made him as ill as the physical sensation of the Drift—but only one memory mattered, and it was from a few hours ago.

 

***

_Herman ran like neither of his legs ever locked up and fell to his knees like he was a teenager before the symptoms kicked in, when the biggest worry on his mind was sneaking around with his boyfriend and making sure they didn't get kicked out of boarding school._

_He slammed his hand down on the abort button, then grabbed Newt to make sure he was still breathing. He stopped seizing immediately, and his pulse was steady and strong under Hermann's searching fingers, and Hermann knew that meant he needed to go and get the Marshal right now but he could not make himself move because Newt was clutching at him and sobbing and Hermann thought it was from the pain and shock but that wasn't the case at all._

_Now the memory is doubled, and he knows what Newt really felt in that moment. Secondary, the pressure of Hermann's arms around him, grounding him, something he'd never in a million fucking years ask for but has needed so goddamn long. But primary is relief, because for a few blessed seconds his mind was no longer silent. For a few blessed seconds, Newt was home, even if home immediately turned on him and tried to short out a brain unused to such stimulation._

 

***

 

When they're in the helicopter, they sit right next to each other without asking, and Hermann has to press his lips up against Newt's ear to be heard. It should feel intimate, but it doesn't because they've already done something more intimate than any human can usually imagine—not to mention that to Newt it was like breathing, so sexual intimacy can't be anything at all.

 

"Are you going to be okay?"

 

Newt looks at him. His face is bloody and dirty and there's a streak of kaiju blue down one cheek like bright lipstick after a tryst, and his eye is red where it isn't green, and it looks like fucked up Christmas. Newt’s wordS, not his. "You're asking _me_ that?" he says back, and he speaks at normal volume and the only reason Hermann catches it is because Newt reads lips and now Hermann can too. And also because he heard it in his head like whispers in an empty room.

 

Hermann stares back at him, trying to frown and failing because he doesn't have the words to convey the endless emptiness he's seen in Newt's life up ‘til this moment.

 

He never would have imagined Newt was as lonely as he was. Not ever. It was part of the reason Newt made him so angry.

 

Newt takes his hand, and he grins, although it's more like a grimace, but at least his hand is warm and solid under Hermann's even though now Hermann knows it's a front. "Dude. I feel better than I have in fucking years." He hesitates, and then he leans over and presses his lips to Hermann's ear, and that is intimate, because he wants it to be intimate, and two days ago that would have been the strangest part of this, but now it's nowhere near the top ten. "I'll tell you everything when it's over. Deal?"

 

Hermann just squeezes his hand because they can't hear each other anyway, and if he tilts his head, Newt might kiss him, and he's not sure if he wants that or not. But if he does want it, it's not going to happen here.

 

***

 

It takes less time than it should. All that death and all that time, and it's over in perhaps an hour. They move toward each other at the same time, and Hermann hugs Newt hard, because he never thought the two of them were going to make it out alive, and it doesn't matter that everything has been turned on its head, because at least he was wrong there.

 

***

 

They go back to Newt's room because it's closer and Hermann can barely walk. It doesn't hurt right now; that will come later, when the muscles finally relax and he can tell that he's been using them all wrong when the feeling was gone. But Newt holds him up, and Hermann allows it, though he would never take that from anyone else. Has pushed him away on several occasions for trying, actually, when he thought Newt was just some idiot who looked at him and felt pity when his body started giving way and missed the forest for the trees, that it didn't matter that his nerves were trying to destroy themselves as long as his mind didn't stop working.

 

And even after he realized that Newt was not quite all right himself, he still pushed Newt away because he wasn't sure what to make of Newt's touch, and a complication like that was the last thing he needed when the world was ending.

 

Now the world isn't ending, or at least they've hit the pause button for a very significant amount of time, and Hermann still doesn't know what to make of Newt's touch, but it isn't bad. And, anyway, he's still got his cane, but it isn't going to be very useful when both of his legs feel like seizing.

 

"I'm thinking like you, and I hate it," he tells Newt when they get to Newt's door.

 

Newt cusses under his breath as he pats different pockets for his keys, all without letting go of Hermann. He finds them in his breast pocket, safely zipped up inside his jacket, and grins at Hermann, and it's exactly the same as it's always been, and that is just impossibly strange. "I know you are, man. It's great." He unlocks his door. "It oughta wear off sooner or later."

 

Hermann huffs. "Hopefully sooner."

 

Hermann has never been inside Newt's room, but it doesn't matter, since now he knows everything about it. It's cleaner than he might have expected; there's clutter everywhere, but not on the floor, and Newt's dirty clothes are neatly kept inside a hamper shaped like a Chinese takeout box.

 

There's only one real problem. Hermann looks around the room once more and sighs. "We need to go to my room," he says, looking at Newt.

 

Newt stares at him. "Dude, I dunno about you, but it took pretty much all my energy just to get here. Right now I just wanna flop." He squints. "Nah. Shower, then flop."

 

Herman frowns. "I can't get around this room. There's no railing, and your shower is too small for a chair."

 

"So I'll help you. But there's no fucking way we're getting to your room. Anyway, my bed is cozier."

 

This is true. Hermann lives a spartan lifestyle. Newt has somehow managed to keep all sorts of errata, despite how much they've had to move over their long careers. Not just the posters and toys and comic books, but a bunch of soft blankets and pillows so that the rigid PPDC issue mattress feels like a bed instead of a life sentence.

 

Hermann takes in a breath, mentally weighing the long and torturous walk versus Newt seeing him naked.

 

Newt snorts. "Dude, I've already seen you naked."

 

Hermann slants his eyes. "We promised to never speak of the chemical shower incident."

 

"Still."

 

Hermann pinches the bridge of his nose and tries to relax. What Newt says is true.

 

And Hermann is unsettled for a lot of reasons besides the physical.

 

Newt's face shifts, and he moves away, steadying Hermann by gripping his arm instead of holding him. "Not like that, man. We're just gonna get cleaned up. And if you need my help, then you need my help. Ain't no thing."

 

Hermann closes his eyes. "Why was I foolish enough to think that upon discovering you are an alien intelligence that your adherence to grammar would suddenly improve?"

 

Newt snorts. "Dude. It's me we're talking about here. Now come on. You're killing me, smalls."

 

Hermann huffs, but he shifts so Newt can take his waist again, and the two of them make it to the bathroom. They don't turn away from each other, but neither do they look. Hermann is glad of it. He feels self conscious, which is ridiculous, because Newt's not even human.

 

"Hermann." Hermann glances over, despite himself. Newt is already naked, his clothes resting in his lap. "I can hear what you're thinking, you know. We can just talk about it like people do if you want."

 

Hermann lets out a breath. "The problem is that you aren't people, Newton," he points out quietly. "But I'm not ready to breach that topic yet. I've got kaiju excreta in my hair."

 

"And me without a sample kit." Newt snaps his fingers, but it's half-hearted. He gets up to start the water with no apparent shame.

 

He really is tattooed everywhere, with the obvious exception. Hermann knew this intellectually before the Drift and now he knows it because he remembers getting every single one of those tattoos, but it's still... something to see. What that something is, he's not sure, but...

 

Newt glances over his shoulder, waiting for the water to warm.

 

"They suit you," Hermann says, still quietly.

 

Newt laughs. "Well, yeah, duh, that's why I got them."

 

There's another elephant in the room, though Hermann doesn't think about it very hard since he doesn't want Newt mentioning it either. This Newt is so much calmer, and it's got nothing to do with the revelation of a secret. Newt's mind digs into his, like a cat kneading a blanket as it purrs.

 

"We'll get there," Newt says, looking at the water. "It's hot now."

 

Hermann sets his clothes aside, neatly folded even though they are ruined, and he would never wear them again even if they weren't. It's going to take a lot of time and a lot of therapy to process what just happened.

 

"So how are we doing this?" Newt asks, pulling the curtain aside.

 

"I can stand if I brace myself on the wall. And I will appreciate your lack of sex jokes, please and thank you."

 

Newt snorts. "Nah, dude. We'll get there." It's teasing, but it's also serious, and it makes Hermann's skin prickle, but not in a bad way. He accepts the hand Newt offers to help him into the tub, since the wall is high and he doesn't trust his good leg to hold his weight even for the moment of stepping over the barrier.

 

Hermann braces his hand against the back of the shower, and Newt adjust the spray so it hits his hips without being asked. Hermann's hands clench into fists, but from relief as overstressed muscles slowly let go. The best solution would be a bath, but that is far, far too much work right now.

 

Newt stands back and says nothing, though Hermann could feel him looking even without the Drift, filing away every inch for future reference.

 

He tells himself he's not blushing, but that's silly.

 

"Help, please," he says at last, when he feels calmer and his body feels less like it's made of wood.

 

Newt steps in alongside him. Hermann can handle washing himself, but he doesn't protest when Newt does it for him, clever fingers working into tight muscles and easing them further. It's not just the massage. Newt needs to touch him, to remind himself that both of them made it out alive. And especially Hermann.

 

Hermann presses his face into the shower wall. It's still cold, and that grounds him. "It's all right, Newton. I'm not going anywhere."

 

Newt's hands still, and then he hides his face in Hermann's back. "It's not fair, you know," he mumbles. "It was okay when it was about saving everybody in general. And then I had to go worrying about you in particular. I'm not used to thinking about parts instead of a whole."

 

He very, very much is not, but Hermann sets that thought aside for now. He turns, slowly, keeping his back pressed against the wall so he can put his hands on either side of Newt's face. "I'm not going anywhere," he repeats. Newt moves toward him, but doesn't close the final breath between them, so Hermann does. And despite everything else that has been put aside, the infinite questions that need to be answered, it is so good to kiss Newt. It's like turning a light on in a dark room, and Hermann didn't even know how much he'd wanted it until this moment.

 

They're pressed together, every naked inch, but the kiss is chaste, gentle. Hermann appreciates that. Newt breaks the kiss and presses his face against Hermann's shoulder. He's shivering, but not from desire or cold; it's still fear rippling over his skin. Hermann holds him close. "It's all right," he murmurs, carding his fingers through Newt's wet hair. "It's all right."

 

***

 

The water runs cold eventually, startling both of them. Hermann is clean at this point, but Newt's still filthy, so they do end up having a bath when the hot water comes back. Hermann sits on the side with his feet in the water, wiping dirt and grime off of Newt. Newt slowly relaxes under his touch, head lolling against the back of the tub. Hermann doesn't want him to tense up again, but he also doesn't want Newt falling asleep before he gets at least a few questions answered.

 

He shivers, thinking of Newt's mouth on his, and Newt opens an eye, the one streaked with blood. "It'll go away," he mumbles. "If I show you."

 

Hermann knows what he means, but he doesn't engage with it. "You need to get up or I'm going to be stuck here for the night," he says eventually. "And the water's getting cold."

 

Newt sighs, but not unhappily, and pushes himself up. Without thinking, Hermann reaches out to trace his fingers down the tattoo on Newt's thigh. Newt sighs again, differently, and Hermann draws his hand back. Newt steps around him and helps Hermann stand, which is good, because now Hermann's legs are relaxed but weak. Newt hands him a towel, and Hermann dries his face while Newt gets the tub unstopped.

 

"If all I had to do to get you to be polite was Drift with you, I'd have done it years ago," he says, and it's supposed to be a joke, but Newt tenses beside him.

 

"The Drift's not funny," Newt says softly.

 

"I'm still getting used to the idea, I'm afraid," Hermann says, moving the towel so Newt can see the apology in his eyes. 

 

Newt shrugs, and though he tries to make his voice light, his eyes are grave. "Hell, sometimes I forget." He doesn't say what he forgets, but Hermann knows.

 

When they're dry, Newt ducks back into his room and passes Hermann one of his blankets. It's soft and warm and Hermann has not had anything this luxurious since...

 

"Since like ever, dude," Newt says, chuckling. He's not dressed, but he's not self conscious, either. He digs a pair of boxers out of his dresser and leaves it at that. "You were already all austerity for victory before the war even started."

 

"Well, someone had to be practical to balance out your hedonism." Hermann walks slowly to Newt's bed and sits. He'd thought about asking Newt to go to his room and get his clothes, but his bare skin against the blanket is something good to focus on.

 

Newt shrugs, unashamed, stretching his arms over his head. "You guys don't even know how good you have it. Cheeseburgers, man. I miss them so much."

 

"We have burgers every day in the cafeteria," Hermann replies.

 

"Yeah, but they're, like, good for you. I mean the really shitty kind that'll give you cancer if you look at it wrong." He sighs and passes a hand through his still damp hair. "Can I sit down?"

 

"It's your bed, Newton," Hermann says, but he moves aside so Newt can sit down. He knows why Newt asked, after all.

 

Newt pulls another one of the blankets around himself. "Jeeze, it's freezing in here," he muttered.

 

"It's shock, Newt. I'm sure both of us are working through quite a bit of it." Hermann lets out a breath and pushes away the part of him that wants to start rebuilding the wall that had separated their minds. If there's one thing he should know by now, it's that walls don't help.

 

"I'm sorry if it's too much," Newt murmurs. "It's just... fuck."

 

He doesn't continue, but he doesn't have to, because it's there, in his mind.

 

***

 

To Hermann, the Hive felt alien and encroaching, scraping claws over him to pull out his secret parts and make him part of itself, drawing out all the things that made him unique and incorporating them into the whole to serve the greater mind.

 

To Newt, it's like falling asleep in a quiet room where you're safe and warm and no one will ever disturb you. You don't think in the Hive, and that's good, because maintaining your own mind is so fucking hard and he still has no idea how anyone puts up with the idea that they can't ever just close their eyes and let go and let some other part of the collective handle things. Sleep doesn't count; even then your brain is ticking like a clock and working over things that you might not be consciously aware of, but it's there all the same. Not to mention your body has to keep breathing and metabolizing and digesting and so much other shit that somehow humans don’t think about.

 

You don't have to worry about that in the Hive. If your body is weak or tired or anxious or restless, it's taken back, and your mind waits for a new one. You become background noise for everyone else's mind, stepping in when they get overwhelmed or their concentration wanders or they simply don't know something and you do.

 

It's not like here. Here, you have to answer every question yourself. And cell biology, human or kaiju, is simple compared to the constant barrage of options presented to every human being every day: _what do you want for breakfast do you like these shoes this shirt or that one_

 

And that's all without going into the fact that you have no idea what's going on in someone else's head.

 

Or the silence. The constant, empty silence that you have to fill with your own voice every moment of every day because there's no one else to take up the banner when your fingers slip from weariness. It doesn't matter how loud he turns up his music or video game or television; there's always a constant empty humming at the back of his mind where the Hive belongs, and only now is that full, as blessedly soothing as a muscle cramp letting go.

 

***

 

"I want you to talk about it," Hermann says abruptly, breaking the link between them. Well, the conscious part anyway. Their minds still push and pull at each other like the constant whisper of the tide on the beach when he goes outside for a smoke.

 

"You need to quit now you know," Newt says, pulling his blanket tighter around him. He's shivering. "You said you would."

 

"I will," Hermann says, and tries not to think about how unpleasant that's going to be. He's quit before, during that brief and shining time when it looked like everyone was going to make it out of this alive. But he let the subject lapse, his only concession to the idea that humanity was facing extinction.

 

"I'll help," Newt says.

 

Hermann looks at him and sighs. "Lay down." Newt obeys, watching him with an eyebrow raised. Hermann pulls the other blankets over top of Newt, then settles alongside him so they're face to face, not quite touching. "Now. Tell me where you came from."

 

Newt closes his eyes, but he doesn't object, and Hermann can sense the images in his mind just outside his own vision, but he doesn't close his eyes to join Newt in the Drift. And Newt does talk about it. "It didn't start out as war," he says, and he's talking about the kaiju, but also about everything else. "Our planet was dying. We needed resources. And our kind can't make the journey through the Throat. It rips us apart.”

 

Hermann feels the vague shape of Newt's real size in his mind, towering over him, and nudges that away. He does want to know what Newt looks like, eventually. But not right now, when Newt is lying beside him, his body slowly relaxing as he warms.

 

Newt nudges closer, and Hermann shifts so that Newt can rest his cheek on Hermann's shoulder. Newt is half asleep now that he's warm and clean. The bastard can sleep through anything. "Including the end of the world," Hermann mutters.

 

"Well, it's not the end of the world anymore, so it's a moot point." Newt huffs. "I'm trying to tell a story here."

 

"Apologies," Hermann says, trailing his fingers through Newt's hair again. Better now that it's clean and dry.

 

Newt grumbles. "You're not sorry. You just think it's funny." He huffs again and shifts his weight a little. "Anyway." His tone shifts slightly. Softer. Less frenetic. "When we started taking other places, we said it would never be somewhere with life of its own. We weren't monsters."

 

***

 

He says we, but he might as well say I or them. At first, the Hive is united, and takes the form of separate bodies only to take advantage of separate limbs working speedily at building ever more complex machines, taking the natural forms of life on their world and sparing them extinction by crafting hardier, more complex versions.

 

 And as the work grows more complex, so too does their specialization, and what once was a simple confluence of minds with a single purpose becomes something else. Now there are different types of we: there are scientists, focused on reaching the other worlds, and breeders, making ever more kaiju, and theorists, trying to understand how to save themselves.

 

The program works at first; they find places empty, and they take what they need, and finally their own world starts to flourish again. But their world can still only support their own population for so long, and they're reaching again.

 

Newt remembers looking on Earth the first time they found it. It looked so perfect: liquid water and plenty of life, plenty of good starting material, but nothing intelligent. But they can't last there. The kaiju die in endless numbers, and they have to retreat.

 

When they return, they have a choice to make: could they take another species' life to sustain their own?

 

It was one thing to send the kaiju out to die. That was to serve the greater good: a few kaiju died in pain and fear so the rest of their species could flourish, finding worlds to replace the one that was too small and too burned out to sustain their population anymore.

 

And it was another to destroy worlds with no sentient life. Maybe they had their own unique forms of plant life and animals, but the Masters were careful to take samples and record everything the kaiju saw, so that perhaps once their own population crisis was solved, they could bring these worlds back to life. They couldn't help anyone if they were dead, and their own survival had to come first.

 

But anyone could look at Earth and see it wasn't just plants and animals. Humans had taken over the planet in such a short time, and they were doing a great job destroying their home on their own. That was what the leaders argue, anyway. The way humans were going, they'd wipe out their home themselves in a few years. The advent of the kaiju would destroy them while the planet was still viable for the Masters, so at least some form of sentient life would get more than temporary use from it.

 

It isn't a good answer, and Newt knows that.

 

Not that he’s Newt at this point. He’s barely a mind at all. He’s a breeder, and the breeders have a distinct Hive from the leaders and the other scientists for simplicity's sake, so that the leaders and the workers and the physicists won't get distracted by things that the breeders need to know and no one else does. Like how to speak with the primitive version of the Hive that exists between each subset of kaiju species, or the specific mix of chemicals in the tanks where they grow kaiju from the individual strands of DNA up.

 

The breeders also know that the world isn't right. That the work has started to make them uneasy. And that they want to stop this.

 

Diverting the leaders is impossible. They are too numerous. If the breeders make a stand, the leaders will subsume them back into the greater Hive, and all thoughts besides what the breeders are made to think will disappear, forgotten like the countless worlds they'd colonized before this.

 

The idea takes time. The humans are clever builders. If they could prepare themselves, maybe they could stand up to the Masters. Surely the Masters will turn back at the first sign of a threat. They won't listen to reason, but they do listen to force, and they always choose the path of least resistance.

 

And Newt tells himself he knows what he was getting into. He'd be reborn into a body made not of silicon but carbon, with blunted fingernails and teeth. Small, by their standards, and not particularly well adapted to his own environment.

 

None of that really matters. Every rebirth meant getting used to a different configuration; they constantly tweak their own design to make life easier and to fulfill different requirements. Having four limbs instead of six made no difference. He'd made do with three, eight, and ten before.

 

He’ll be cut off from the Hive, but he thinks perhaps he'll like pulling away. It'll be an interesting experiment.

 

Then he’s waking up, naked and freezing, and the only sound inside his own mind are his thoughts, ticking along so much slower without silicate structure, and he screams to hear the sound of his voice, and it doesn’t help at all, but he’s really never stopped screaming.

 

***

 

Newt shivers, pulling away from that memory, and Hermann is glad of it.

 

"Yeah, so that sucked," Newt says, his voice shaking just a little.

 

Hermann would normally make fun of him for the indelicate phrasing, but right now he just runs his fingers through Newt's hair again and again. There aren't words. How do you tell someone whose only solace has ever been being alone that experiencing solitude for the first time in your life was horrible?

 

Hermann sighs. "I wouldn't want to be _that_ alone. I didn't like most of the people I've known in my life, yes, but I wouldn't want to wake up in an empty world, either. How did you get here?"

 

Newt shrugs, wiggling around so he can look Hermann in the face. "Well, I had time to kill. I was supposed to come out closer to Trespasser, but I didn't. Time runs too weird between the two worlds, I guess."

 

Newt's not a physicist, so weird is the best he can do; he's not interested in the intricacies Hermann glimpsed in the Hive, the sense of a world where physics is so different that even time doesn't run the way people believe it should.

 

Newt huffs. "Cut that out. No math in my bed."

 

"We're going to spend the entire evening discussing your area of science. Mine gets to be here too."

 

Newt huffs, but he's not really upset.

 

Which, despite everything, is still the weirdest part of this entire story.

 

"Dude," Newt mutters, pushing himself up on an elbow so he can look down at Hermann's face. "I never hated you." He screws up his face. "Don't get me wrong. I hate a lot about this place. But not you." He pauses, then carefully sets his hand alongside Hermann's face. Hermann wants to look away from the naked emotion on Newt's face, but that would be disingenuous. "I thought you hated me. I mean, you bit my head off the first time we met in person."

 

Hermann rolls his eyes. "Newt, the first thing you said to me after five years, _five years_ , of written correspondence, was, 'how do you talk with that stick up your ass?'"

 

Newt shrugs, no shame in his face. "I had to say something, and you'd probably have me locked up if I was, like, dude, you're the only human being alive who takes this entire threat seriously, and also I'm not exactly human, and I've met a whole bunch of people, but you're the only one who makes me care about that fact."

 

Hermann frowns, just slightly. He already knows the answer to his own question, but he needs to say it anyway. "And why was that, Newt?"

 

Newt doesn't miss a beat. "Because I totally wanted to kiss your stupid face, and that was really weird. But you..."

 

Hermann never hesitates to take Newt to task when he doesn't finish a sentence. But this is another thing where Newt couldn't say it in words, because--

 

***

 

Because the answer starts with the way Hermann writes so hard he pokes holes in the paper sometimes. Newt started running his fingers over the impressions like rosary beads, his own version of a prayer— _let the humans figure this out so I can keep talking to this man. Don't take him away from me._

 

Because this is the first time Newt remembers wanting something beneficial to himself alone. The Hive doesn't care about the fate of one human being, never mind that he's a genius. At this point, others could take up the work. Not as well, and not as quickly, but if Hermann Gottlieb died, humanity would dust itself off and square up for another punch. But Newt would curl up on himself and wonder what was the fucking point if he couldn't fix this one fucking thing.

 

Because Hermann Gottlieb smiles when he sees Newt for the first time. No one smiles when they look at Newt. The doctors have commented that he has strange brain scans, but they don't care about what it means since he's not lining up to be a pilot, and it's pretty obvious from his writings about kaiju that his brain works, even if they don't necessarily agree with the objects of his obsession.

 

But Hermann smiles. Hermann smiles like he's been hiding a smile inside his crabby, secretive face this entire time. Like this is the first time he's ever smiled at anyone and really meant it.

 

And then Newt fucked the whole thing up, but it doesn't matter, because now he sees Hermann all the time, and even though Hermann's always a little worse for wear, he's still breathing and shaking his cane and telling Newt to get the hell out of his laboratory even though they've shared a space for nearly five years at this point.

 

Because when Newt plugs himself into the Hive for the first time in so long, it feels so good, and he's getting swallowed alive, and the only thing that brings him back isn't the end of the Drift; it's Hermann's nails digging into his arms, it's Hermann's voice shouting in his ears, it's Hermann closer than he's been to Newt in all of their long acquaintance, and Newt wants to come back to him more than he wants to close his eyes and stop existing for a few blessed minutes.

 

***

 

Newt's leaning over top of him now, and they're looking at each other, and Hermann doesn't move away when Newt leans down to kiss him.  This one is deep and soft and unhurried, like they have the rest of time to kiss each other, because now they do. And Newt doesn't have any idea how to kiss well, but he's a quick study, though he doesn't push it any further than kissing.

 

When they're both out of breath and exhausted again, Newt shifts so Hermann can rest his head on Newt's chest this time, listening to his reassuringly human heartbeat.

 

"It was like that for me, you know," Hermann murmurs.

 

"Well, I know that now, but you could have fucking fooled me." Newt's not upset, but he still pokes Hermann in the side.

 

"How on earth did we manage to Drift?" Hermann murmurs. It's not really a question, but Newt answers it anyway, which is usually Hermann's irritating habit, so apparently they're picking things up from each other after all.

 

"Because we know what's really important." Newt runs his fingers down Hermann's spine: just lightly, and it's not supposed to be sexual, but it still makes Hermann stir and press his face into Newt's neck. "Everything else is just little shit. Window dressing. This is what matters." He huffs. "I mean, I'm surprised a stickler like you could put aside the details in favor of the bigger picture, but weirder shit has happened today."

 

Hermann bites the side of his neck, just hard enough to hurt. "What do you think I've been doing all bloody night? There's about a million more questions I could answer you, but I am not, because right now the bigger picture is that neither of us have gotten a decent night's rest in over a decade."

 

"I don't like to sleep, though. Sleep is weird."

 

Hermann rolls his eyes, glad that Newt can't see it. "Yes, well, I do, and I think you'll understand why when we both wake up. Now go to sleep, Newt."

 

"Only if you'll be here in the morning," Newt says, and it's only half a joke, one arm curling around Hermann.

 

Hermann kisses his cheek to buy himself a moment to think, but really, the question was answered the moment he saw Newt seizing on the floor. Was that really only a few hours ago? He closes his eyes. "Yes, dear. That you can count on."

 


End file.
